#totheark theory

[bleed-more]

My Updated Headcanons for Seth Wilson

Since a lot of my attention is on Seth right now, I'm writing some updated headcanons for him with things I've learned over the past 4 years! I'm starting with my HCs with evidence and will write my HCs without evidence later >:3c

HEADCANONS WITH EVIDENCE:

- Seth's dog name is Link (Joseph mentioned in a livestream that's Seth the actor's dog's name so in typical MH fashion I imagine dog actor Link also plays dog character Link)

- Seth is about as tall as Brian (this isn't even really a hc but I used to draw him short so I wanted to clear that up)

- Seth did all the TTA entries that include fried images and red motifs (based off of Night Mind's theory that Tim-themed entries are black and white, Brian-themed entries are stereoscopic, and Seth-themed entries are deep-fried/red. They used these colors to both communicate who's speaking AND to let the recipient know who the message is for.)

- Seth used to be Christian but fell out of it by Season 2 (I think Seth is responsible for all the Christian iconography in the first season i.e. stigmata, ark, deluge, etc. considering neither Brian nor Tim were part of TTA yet, and he slowly abandons that faith because.......)

- ...Seth thinks he is a messiah of some kind (from TTA's "Forecast" where he says "AMIAPROPHET." [TW DEAD ANIMALS & ANIMAL CRUELTY FR PLS READ WITH CAUTION] Forecast uses footage from the USSR's "Experiments in the Revival of Organisms: 1940" in which you see a disembodied dog's lung being inflated and deflated by a machine in an effort to keep a dismembered dog's head alive. I don't think it's a coincidence TTA used a dismembered dog to refer to Seth ((or what Seth has become)) and that Seth is both alive(-ish) and has saved others from death, but only in the same fucked up corrupted way you see in the USSR's footage. Which leads me to...)

[END TW]

- ...Seth is trapped somewhere between the line of life and death and is sticking around for the unfinished business of revenge killing Alex (in the TTA entries, while many things are convoluted and unclear, one thing that is very consistent is TTA's hatred of Alex. Seth is vengeful for the death of himself, the attempted and successful murders of his friends. From TTA's "Decay" where Seth is clearly addressing Alex, he says "HE[Jay] WILL LEAD ME[Seth] TO YOU[Alex], LEAD ME TO DEATH[because his job will be done then], LEAD ME TO THE ARK[salvation and an end to his and Alex's suffering])

- Seth is the one responsible for Brian, Tim, and Jay surviving during Alex's first murder attempt (Alex couldn't bring himself to *actually* kill his friends back in 2006, so he lured them to the park and used blunt force trauma to knock them unconscious hoping leaving them for dead out in the park would be enough. Seth, however, had already caught on that something was wrong after Sarah's disappearance (I am going to write a whole thing about this eventually hehehe) and so he knew to be at the park, and after Alex left them, Seth made sure they were safe (there is also info I have here about a lake but that's worth a whole other post, send an ask if you're curious <3)

- And finally, Seth had been well ahead of everyone else in figuring out what was going on (Seth was the camera and tech guy, so it would make sense he would be the first to see what's happening on these cameras, and investigating what might be causing all of this. Seth was the one who coined the term OPERATOR. He understood Alex's actions were being influenced by this creature Seth was seeing while editing Marble Hornets. And I also think Alex knew Seth was catching onto his murder attempts, and that's why Alex took no chances and shot Seth (the first instance of Alex using a gun in the series) instead of hitting him over the head with a pipe and leaving him for the Operator like the others.)

I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW WHAT YOU THINK AND IF YOU GUYS HAVE ANY OF YOUR OWN THEORIES THIS WAS REALLY FUN TO WRITE AND I CANT WAIT TO MAKE PART 2 <3

[brittlebutch]

Desperately trying to make sense of Alex's motivations in Season Two and you know, I do eventually have to wonder if maybe Alex wasn't actually lying in the majority of those tapes.

Like, we tend to assume that Alex's motivations have been a consistent throughline since the college years, but do we actually know that that's the case? Do we know for sure that Alex was acting in deliberate, calculated ways in 2006; or could it be that he's telling the Truth on those olds tapes when he says he's blacking out and can't remember what's happening to anyone? After all, if we're assuming that Season 2 Alex's motivations are the exact same as his motives in Season 3, then it doesn't make any sense at all that he spend months working with Jay to try to find Amy; Season 3 Alex would have attempted to kill Jay like, on sight just to get things over with as quickly as possible and contain the spread of contamination as best as he could.

But, maybe, if Alex really had been separated from Amy after the events of the 04-04-10 tape, and if he really doesn't know where she is, then maybe that could make things start to make more sense. Maybe he really had been watching Jay's channel, and seeing Jay start going through the same things he went through in college without things devolving into violence and disappearances, and wondered if things maybe could play out differently this time. Maybe he really did send that tape to Jay to ask him for help, maybe he really was just trying to find Amy.

But then, instead of actually being helpful, Jay makes it extremely clear that he's a lot more interested in stalking Alex than he is in finding Amy. Alex asked for help, and instead there's a bunch of masked dudes on Jay's heels that keep attacking him, Jay is breaking into his house, stealing his things, leading the Operator right to him all over again, keeps trying to get other people (namely: Jessica -- if Alex is being honest when he says that his call reassuring her that Amy had been found was an effort to make Sure she stayed away from everything that was happening) involved; and instead of anything getting better, instead of anyone finding Amy, things are just getting worse all over again.

It's not until after the incident at the tunnel that things seem to start rapidly devolving. Rather than a calculated attempt to finally follow through with his need to curb the spread of contamination, this is very clearly an outburst of rage and terror. Alex's "I told you not to follow me" line in conjunction with Jay speculating that Alex didn't know who that guy was, to me, pretty firmly seems to speak to Alex having mistaken that stranger for Jay. From his point of view, Alex knows that Jay and totheark know where he live, have broken in before, he suspects that Jay stole a key to make it easier to get into his house, and he's been followed on the daily for months -- Alex is sitting at the tunnel because he doesn't know where else he can go without being constantly surveilled, hunted, and assaulted. And instead of getting a moment by himself to breathe, Jay followed him out there all over again (it feels like Alex looks directly at the camera in Jay's footage of him from this day; he knew for a fact that Jay was there), and then to make matters worse now 'Jay' won't even keep his distance anymore.

So Alex lashes out. And it's not until afterwards that he looks down and finally recognizes that this wasn't Jay -- it was someone completely innocent. Things have finally reached the low point he was at in college all over again; maybe even worse this time. If Alex doesn't remember attacking anyone in college, but he was at least partially conscious of it this time, then things have reached an entirely new rock bottom, they've reached an absolute point of no return.

He has no idea what happened to Amy, and he's spent months trying to find her with no hint of where she could be; he doesn't know where Jay actually is or what additional trouble he could be causing at this point; he does know that now innocent people are getting caught in the crossfire (in regards to the stranger in the tunnel, and also Jessica now that Jay has her phone number, and the untold number of people Jay got involved when he started posting videos to the Marble Hornets channel); things are spiraling out of control and there's no one left to ask for help. The situation isn't getting better, it's getting worse; things aren't getting easier to handle, they're just getting more out of hand; the negative impact is spreading and who knows how much further it can still go?

So, Alex decides to go scorched earth. He disfigures the body with the rock either to hide evidence or to make sure the guy would actually stay dead and not just get back up to start his own cycle of contamination in a few years. He tries to give Jay one last chance to back off, and Jay instead admits he's been talking to Jessica, acts obstinate and lies about not having Alex's spare key, and then breaks into Alex's house a second time (minimum). If Alex doesn't stop him now, who will? Alex met with Jay planning to kill the others, and then himself, so he could put a stop to this once and for all and keep things from getting any worse than they already were.

Maybe it makes a lot more sense if, rather than being a strangely incomprehensible detour on what should have been a straight path, the events of Season Two were the breaking point that put Alex on that path to begin with.

[angels-in-overcoats]

Throwback to when we didn’t know who Hoody was and every discussion about it felt we were betting on horse races

[sunnytheopossum]

Okay… I may or may not actually be starting work on that Marble Hornets fan comic I mentioned wanting to make… like I wrote up and entire script and came up with a bunch of thumbnails and everything. Don’t expect it to be finished anytime SOON, but it’s happening. Here’s some concept art I made for it though!

Elevator pitch: TOTHEARK: Downpour will be a 4-chapter-long black and white (and red) webcomic about the founding, operation, and eventual downfall of totheark. I will be taking a lot of inspiration from some of my favorite Marble Hornet theories/headcanons to fill in the blanks (such as Seth being the founding member of totheark) but for the most part, this comic will attempt to be almost 100% canon-compliant whenever possible.

Also, suggestions for iconic scenes/popular totheark headcanons you’d want me to include are very much welcomed! I’m going to try and make this comic somewhat brief (or at least as brief as I can physically manage as someone who can’t shut up), so I’m thinking of splitting it into four “chapters” ranging from 0-3 with an average of 7 pages per chapter to correlate with the seasons of MH + a post-season 1 chapter dedicated to exploring the initial motivations of the founding totheark member. With that in mind, any scene involving Hoody/Brian, Masky/Tim, or Seth is on the table! You probably won’t see much of Jay, Jessica, or Alex (other than being mentioned in passing) seen as I will be focusing on totheark almost exclusively, but feel free to suggest scenes including those idiots as well.

[wickerfox]

HELLO YES ITS ME IM COPY PASTING THE THING HERE:

YOU JUST MADE THE CHILD IN ME BLOOM. THE QUESTION LIST (THIS IS THE FIRST TIME IM SEEING THIS AU BUT GOD FORBID):

× Who's Hoodie

× Is it in the same time setting as MH

× Who PLAYS AS ALEX

× Did it start the same way as a dumb school film project?

× From what I understood Scar takes the role of Tim, is bro a chainsmoker too LMFAO.

× Is Grian canonically gay too

× Would it be a wild correct guess that Amy is Lizzie and Alex is Joel since yk based from obvious plot points?

(before I start, placing this disclaimer here at the top since I have friends who don't frequent mcyt and might get confused, but when I talk abt this au I'm specifically talking abt the characters, not the content creators themselves. Anyway)

SO IM GONNA GO AHEAD AND SHARE WHOSE WHO FIRST

Jay- Grian, it made the most sense in my head, but I actually flip flopped on this so many times bc he also works so well as Tim or Alex, but at some point I went "wait it's an au, we can see how the story changes with Grian as the protag" so Grian's the protag now

Tim/Masky- Scar, I'm a transparent desert duo enjoyer and had a similar flip flop with him as I did Grian bc he'd also work as Jay but I was halfway through that drawing and had a similar thought process to the one i had abt Grian

Brian/Hoodie- Jimmy, I wanted to keep the cast focused to life series and evo members and he made the most sense to me lore wise, especially with the idea that in this au he was one of the ones with the earliest exposure to The Watcher (bc I love Canary Curse symbolism)

Alex- This one was the toughest choice bc no matter what a fav is going to loose it. Good thing this based on the Life Series! As much as I Love the idea of Joel and Lizzie as Alex and Amy, I actually went with Martyn. Again, the character is pretty involved with the Watcher Lore so it made the most sense as the character that is arguably most effected by it. (Although for a brief moment I considered Mumbo Jumbo bc,,, how fucking funny would that be)

Jessica- Jessica's gotta be Pearl right? It makes the most sense for it to be Pearl, I don't even need reasoning for this it makes sense

Amy- So who's Amy then? Scott actually! He's not Martyn's boyfriend in this, he's just a really good friend of his who was super involved in the production. Also like in mh, he's Pearl's roommate.

Sarah- Ren. Can't have a life series au featuring desert duo and not have some renchanting. Who else would be one of the leading actors in Martyn's short film?

Seth- Big B, again Evo connection made sense to me, and depending on your own personal theory on who the third person running the totheark account is, both Big B and Ren have interesting implications, even if both their rolls are p minor in this au

With the cast out of the way other questions !!!

It's set in a kind of nebulous time frame that's probably a little closer to present day, but it does still start with a student film project. When asked Why Martyn chose to use tapes he says something about wanting a more authentic feel to the film but in reality he just thought using tapes was a cool idea and doesn't want to admit that it's kind of impractical now.

In this au Scar doesn't smoke, but instead I like the headcannon that he just has boxes of candy/bubblegum cigarettes on him at all times. He'll pull one out, pause, and offer one to someone and when they say no he's just like "Okay, your loss" and watch as they get all confused when he starts unwrapping it asdfghkgkdjhfjsh

Is Grian gay in this au? Whose to say. (Real answer tho, I'm a notorious Jam shipper and while I'm not an active shipper when it comes to hermitcraft or the life series, I don't really mind it so the relationship is left kind of ambiguous)

But yes THANK YOU DO MUCH FOR GIVING ME A CHANCE TO TALK ABT THIS IVE BEEN RAMBLING TO MY FRIEND WHO DOESNT UNDERSTAND ANYTHING IVE BEEN SAYING FOR DAYS

[splattergutz]

will always wonder what jay & tim did when they were hiding out in hotels. my theory is that jay was just constantly hunched over his laptop obsessively watching totheark videos while tim sat there in silence & smoked cigarettes inside the room to piss jay off.

[xombe]

Brian

Brain was always there; as an actor on Marble Hornets, as a partner to the masked man, he lived right under the audience's nose. He haunts the narrative, almost every clue every hunt has his fingerprints on it. Behind the scenes, pulling the strings, trying to drive the players in the right direction, he's an agent of the Web.

Where Brian goes after the figure drags him away is unknown. Alex tells us that he, along with the rest of the actors, is gone, so it's safe to assume that either Alex thought he killed Brian, or that the Operator got him. He doesn't stay gone forever, though, and rejoins the narrative as the hooded man, chasing some unknown goal, though ever present.

As the hooded man Brian works with the masked man in the early season. The only goal confirmed for the audience is his desire to kill Alex, which we see him almost accomplish in the rock scene. When Tim partners up with Jay, the hooded man attempts to reconnect with him through cryptic messages. The "LIAR" written on the hospital wall when Tim and Jay investigated it was meant for Tim, though the meaning behind the message is unknown.

Noting Brian's potential involvement with Totheark adds to the connection. Entry #61 heavily implies that the hooded man is involved with Totheark in some form, whether that be as the sole entity, or part of the collective. Totheark has a larger goal than just killing Alex, otherwise he would have no reason to taunt Jay or drive him toward "the ark."

Were I to attach another entity to Brian, it would either be the Lonely because of his isolation from the rest of the group.

Much of this connection relies on Brian being part of Totheark, something I attempted to avoid in the beginning, but realized you can't talk about him without mentioning the theory. I really enjoy Brian's character, because he doesn't have much confirmed in the narrative he's an open book for crafting theories and fan content.

Alex // Jay // Tim

[blindrapture]

june 21st. day 2 of the strange short Tally Marks logs.

fun fact: the unfunny jokester voice was, of course, added with the Fifth Draft (which first added Attacheds to the story), and I stuck with it in all later drafts for these logs because. well, it's kind of heady, not something I'd ever had the opportunity (or, been asked) to explain.

but it's something like an iteration on totheark. a really dry two-step joke, in some ways-- "god, what if we suddenly got totheark responses out of nowhere? god, what if totheark just really wanted to tell some bad jokes?" there is, like, a tiny bit more depth to it than that, having to do with 1) who this jokester voice is, and 2) an engagement with a conflict Rapture is very interested in in the long-term, the conflict of horror and comedy (which are really synonymous) versus drama. this jokester voice is not a terribly deep engagement with that conflict, but it was important to me, when reconsidering this long Internet Fic as a physical object (a Book), to thread in some variations on the theme in places that otherwise were in need of a bit more density. (see: textual spatiality, as opposed to temporality. a joycean concept.)

you can discard the Theory stuff here, it's fine. it's all really just about the strange sequence of reactions I wanted the reader to have, including a specific headspace of confusion. act 1 is visceral and rather basic, by choice. the relevance of all the Theory stuff will wait for later.

[thewonderousdance]

Having more fun with the totheark videos than the actual entries

Just a theory/thoughts under the readmore

In the totheark video 'signal' everyone in the comments is talking about how it relates to Jay but with the video before it being centered around Tim, doesn't it make more sense for it to relate to him?

Maybe I'm reading this wrong but the audio for signal feels like it relates more to Tim's childhood relation with the operator than to Jay.

[throatofdelusion12]

I'm rewatching marble hornets and am on entry 45

I have a theory on the operator, in one of the previous entries, Alex said something about stretching people out on the trees and well who do we know that's stretched. Also, up to this point no one had called the operator that other than totheark but when Alex is making more notes he calls it operater.

[bleed-more]

Arky my beloved, can't wait to see more of him! (I may have been calling my personal version of Seth's masked state Arky for years directly because of you, lol)

Seth my beloved in general tbh

That makes me SO HAPPY

I always get so excited seeing other people vibing with Seth/Arky as totheark, ESPECIALLY when I have helped contribute to that HEHEHEHE

Seth totheark theory FOREVERRRR

This is my updated design concept for his "Arky/totheark" state, drawn just for you <3

[triblu]

Okay my head is very full again and I gotta pour it out again

So there is a very small cinematic universe rn with marble hornets [...the hornetverse? ..operatorverse?]

Cosisting of (in order of appearance)

Marble hornets

Clear lakes 44 ( in a semi cannon form)

ECVKA

The marble hornets comics

[Do correct me if i miss anything]

These cross over in an interesting way as the comics tie directly to the original series and ECKVA only really has the broadcaster, mentioning clear lakes, and preaxin.

They branch out separately with the comics taking place in Alabama near the original siting of marble hornets and Eckva taking place outside of the state (as we see it taking over the broadcasting range of CL44 which followed Tim after his move out of the rosswood area)

[My money is on Georgia as the state]

Their still fairly separate right now, but as we see, there is a bit of a thread to follow in them crossing paths.

First off, the obvious, Tim

If this portion of clear lakes is still cannon we see Tim post MH alive and holding a job. its possible that Jessica and/or Skully could seek out the poor SOB and try to get some help on their mission and equally likely, ECKVA may be keeping track on him

While i would adore this, two ARG protagonists fighting over Tim goddamn Wright. I also would like to bring up a different possibility

Seth

Theres two common theories i have heard about our dog loving camera man (besides not being dead)

[I'm fairly certain seth isn't dead as we see the many skully carries and we do not see Seth's face among them]

1. He is the creator of totheark the watchful eye to the trio of Brian and Tim working to kill alex despite the operators protection

2. He is Shawkins1926 sibling to Shawkins1928 Shelby Hawkins and the static handed investigator of an old property

If these two theories are true we have the perfect thread as the ark now is completely spilt

Brian is dead among Skully

Tim has been moving on but still

Seth is dealing with new problems likely connected to the operator still

I would lose my mind if they all meet up again one day in one of the series

LET BRIAN AND TIM MAKE UP

Side note:

I really believe that a series [maybe one of the comics!] That covers the events of marble hornets through the broken lense of each to the arc member would be incredible AND I VERY MUCH WANT IT

[saccadesoup]

HIII

RELIGIOUS SYMBOLISM IN TOTHEARK VIDEOS!!! THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS??? :O

Intellectual conversation prompt for intellectuals

OUGH YES TY FOR BRINGING THIS UP /GEN

unorganised ramble under the cut

starting with the name ToTheArk itself, it’s a pretty clear reference to Noah’s Ark. i think the operator represents the sin that plagued pre-flood humanity, sickly and spreading, taking hold of anyone it touches. TTA is hellbent on finding ‘the ark’ (“FIND ALEX/FIND THE ARK”) which is some form of salvation from the operator - the whole concept is like a slightly twisted metaphor for the bible story.

in the actual videos, rain/water imagery is used a lot, further solidifying this metaphor - the rain in ‘impurity’, plus the title of ‘deluge’ literally means a huge flood. the underwater/ripple effect in ‘broadcast’ combined with the question in the description (“are you drowning?”) makes me think TTA is actually asking something along the lines of “are you tainted by the operator? will you drown when the flood comes? do you need to be cleansed of his sin?”

also the stigmata symbol is so interesting to me... the clip of alex bleeding from his head like how the crown of thorns on jesus’ head would’ve made him bleed. then TTA wanting alex to “bleed more”

imo the motive behind using this religious imagery could simply just be. to fuck with everyone. they all grew up in the bible belt, were probably raised catholic or some other denomination, and by using these symbols of their childhood and forgotten faith… it’s almost like TTA is mocking them. religious trauma n all that

also not really related to anything just something i wanted to point out - TTA’s videos have 3 distinct styles, possibly reminiscent of the holy trinity: the son, the father and the holy ghost, all coming together to form one entity, the christian god, or in this case, TTA (all of this plays into the “3 people running it” theory). throughout marble hornets, TTA does ‘play god’ quite a bit, often seeming all-knowing (especially early on in the series). they’re able to do things that seemingly shouldn’t be possible, such as filming their videos without getting caught or having tapes that they shouldn’t reasonably have access to.

it’s been a while since i’ve watched through the whole series so if some of these don’t make sense in context just ignore them LMAO

[brittlebutch]

So THAT’S what he meant by “you missed one”! I’d thought he was referring to himself, but that still didn’t feel like it was the right interpretation.

I still have some questions, though: If Alex didn’t want to drag anyone else into this, why give Jay the tapes at all? Why not just say he’d already burned/lost them? I forget which entry it is, but there’s that one with the footage of Alex’s birthday party when he’s a kid—if The Operator’s there, does that mean he’s wrong and Tim isn’t the (only) source?

Less of a question and more of an angsty theory: What if Tim’s meds were helping somehow, but Brian just started taking them too late to reverse the damage The Operator has done? It’s possible that prolonged exposure caused the issues you mentioned, and he’s a shell of his former self (though still trying to help) like Tim said.

(If you’ve got any, I’d love some Brian and Tim fic recs—platonic or otherwise—where Brian lives. He was Tim’s best friend, and to have it end like that—I’m emotional and fully in denial. He’s fine, they’re fine.

Everything is fine. 😉)

Yay I'm glad it was able to help!! Going to answer your questions under a cut again because Spoilers and also I'm incapable of being brief lmao

Alex giving Jay the tapes is one of those things where it's hard to tell if it's a character beat (ie; Alex maybe thought he'd already burned most of the Operator related footage and just didn't realize there was more mixed in with the film project footage, OR just that he really did anticipate successfully killing Jay that evening and was like 'it's not like it's going to matter' and it's almost a 'one nice things before you go' moment) or if it's a moment of Operator influence (which has been shown to impact impulsivity and the ability to think clearly).

The Doyalist explanation though is just that the Marble Hornets project was started by planning out season 1 alone, which was organized and filmed as a more or less complete story that the creators decided to unfold further after videos had already been posted. It's likely that Alex's motivations and intentions weren't actually worked out in any detail (since the planning of season 1 was mostly done in terms of Shots and Footage as opposed to unfolded character dynamics) until around season 2 and beyond. Alex probably wouldn't have acquiesced and gave Jay the tapes, but because that was the Whole Beat that kicked off the series to begin with, it has to be left as a minor contradiction in his character goals as we learn of them later lol]]]

As for enttry #37, I'm kind of of the opinion that the Operator was not actually physically present in that footage; I tend to see it as something Brian edited into the footage to make a point. Sometimes I do wonder if Alex was haunted by the Operator as long as Tim was, but the way season 3 unfolds regarding that topic (Uncovering Tim's history, Tim's speculation, and Alex's agreement with it) makes me personally lean into the notion that Tim alone was the source as they entered college. To me, it feels like Alex's reactions to and goals drawn from his encounters with the Operator throughout the whole series weren't well-worn, you know? He doesn't seem used/adjusted to these things or able to rationalize they're existence as like 'some kind of childhood hallucination', it feels New to him, which is part of the reason why he reacts the way he does.

Also, the kind of hazy/staticky appearance to the Operator in enttrry 37 (and the fact that no one in the room reacts to it) makes it feel like a standard totheark edit rather than plain footage <- the Operator is always a tangible presence when it shows up, it's never ethereal or vague it's something with weight in the frame because it is there physically. If it had been Actually present at that party, then I don't think we should have been able to see it at all because there were no lights on (and it's not bringing a light source with it lol) during that shot. So I'm of the opinion that Brian took advantage of the blank dark footage to Edit in footage of the Operator, to make a point about how he thought Alex was the source of it (another reason he's so stung by the uncovering of Tim's medical records - because it would have forced him to re-contextualize some of his opinion of Alex)

That is possible! Without getting too far into comic spoilers, we have found out that Brian's exposure to the Ark has resulted in him losing tangible pieces of himself. By the time he dies, there was little (if anything) left for it to take; so it is possible that the damage was just too much to recover from anymore.

As for fic recs! I do have a few :3 I don't have a lot of fluff ones per se, because the angry/complicated character dynamics in this series are a huge draw for me, but I do have a couple Brian Lives Tim&Brian recs: GrenadeFestival's "Eutychus" and sp4rrowbird's "Unpayable Debt". One of my own Marble Hornets series is an Everybody Lives one that has a couple of Tim&Brian-centric fics so far - Making Strange With one Another.

[creepy-spooghetti]

The “Ark” Theory

OKAY, so there are a lot of theories out there about Marble Hornets, and I likely haven’t even seen half of them before. But one of the main questions around it is, what exactly is the Ark? There have been speculations that the Ark is Alex, that it’s the “Own Zone” as Joseph called it, or even that it’s a certain mental state that you have to put yourself in.

But what if it’s none of those? What if the Ark isn’t even physical at all? Here’s a theory; there have been many instances when totheark talked about the Ark, one of their more known quotes is, “He will lead me to you. Lead me to death. Lead me to the Ark.”

And so I was thinking, when you die you can either go to heaven or to hell, and if they were talking about one of these places you could only get to them if you did, indeed, die. Now we know that totheark is searching for something, and this “something” is the Ark. It’s unsure who exactly they’re talking to several times; it could be Jay, it could be Alex, it could even be Tim. But maybe it’s none of them. Maybe they’re trying to reach out to someone else for answers, maybe they’re looking for guidance from someone that they’re unable to find.

Here’s where we get into the theory.

What if the “Ark” in question is Jesus? Or rather, salvation? Considering the fact that the Operator is obviously an otherworldly, sinister being, it takes people who die to the Own Zone, which is the other world. Its other world. Remember when Tim got teleported there during Entry #65 and he saw the man Alex had killed with the rock? All the surroundings were dark. You couldn’t see past the corpse.

What does the KJV Bible say about hell? “And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.” -Jude 6. Hell is a dark place. But at the same time, it’s filled with flame.

“And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.” -Revelation 20:50. What do we know about Tim? He smokes. We also know that his old hospital was burned down. Most don’t know that Tim himself was the reason it burned down, though. That quick shot of the melting grill, along with the fire as Tim gets teleported back to his room in Entry #83? The fire started in his room.

So maybe that’s why the Operator latched on so tightly to Tim before it found Alex. It was attracted to fire. We know that the devil is associated with fire, not because he’s from hell but because he’s going to be thrown into hell. 

So in this case, let’s say that the Operator represents Satan, the other dimension represents hell, and Jesus is the Ark. Then let’s say that, in terms of Noah’s Ark, that “hell” is the flood. It’s the place nobody wants to be taken to, the place of eternal darkness, flame, and suffering. And totheark doesn’t want to be caught in the flood.

So then what would the Operator be? I thought about this a bit and came to the conclusion that it’s sin. Or rather, the influence of sin. It affects everybody it manages to get its hands on, and Alex is a great example. Then Alex would be the people, the sinners that needed to be wiped off the face of the earth. The only way to get away from the flood would be to find the Ark, which in this case, would be Jesus.

So the Own Zone is the flood, the Operator is sin, Alex is the sinners, and Jesus is the Ark. The only way to escape the flood, ultimate death, would be to find the Ark. But totheark says “lead me to death”. So maybe they want to die, but they don’t want to be taken to hell, which we’ve seen is the Operator’s dimension that it takes victims to. 

It took the man that Alex killed, we can assume it took Jay, and it took Alex. I would say it took Jessica, but since she’s alive and well maybe it only brought her out of danger because she is its new puppet, its ‘people’ that it manipulates. She’s the new sinner.

In the end, maybe totheark wanted one thing besides getting revenge on Alex, and maybe that one thing was salvation. They wanted safety, they wanted to be sure they would be okay in the end. They wanted the Ark. 

Did they get it? Well, we don’t know what happened to Seth, but after Hoody died and was revealed to be Brian, did the Operator take him? No. Even days after being dead, his corpse was still there. We know for a fact that whoever dies due to Alex, or anyone else that had been affected by the Operator, is taken almost immediately after death. That didn’t happen for Brian.

I like to think that he did get what he was looking for in the end. Remember totheark’s video “Null”? It was their last upload, and in it, the person behind the camera, who we now know was Brian, seemed almost... peaceful. There was a sad kind of feeling to the video, but the way he speaks in it sounds like he has peace of mind. Like he knows he has nothing to fear, because maybe he doesn’t anymore. It’s clear that he knew it would be his last upload, that he knew he would have a showdown with Tim. 

He didn’t care if he died in the end or not, why? Because he knew he would be okay, whether he lived or whether he died. He had nothing to be afraid of anymore. He found Jesus, he found the Ark, and he boarded it. And he knew he was on his way to heaven, away from the flood. Away from the clutches of the Operator.

As for Tim? Some speculate that he killed Jessica and then himself, as before Alex died he said that it wasn’t over. He would have to keep killing the infected, and then himself. That it was the only way to stop the ‘spread’. 

Some think that he continued being controlled by the Operator, and that would be a reasonable thing to believe because, as you may remember, in the last entry Tim suffered a major coughing fit, with Jessica bending down to ask if he was okay. The video then cuts to Tim driving in a car, seemingly composed a bit. 

The camera stays on him for while before he grabs his pill bottle, continues to stare ahead, and looks moments away from bursting into tears before he swirls the camera around so us, the viewers, are facing the direction that the car is being driven. The screen then goes black and the letters displayed on the screen is but three simple words; “Everything is fine.”

IS everything really fine, Tim? No. No, it is not. At least, that’s what I got from it. Tim’s known to lie, and it wouldn’t be a surprise that his last words to viewers would be a reassuring sentence to try and convince him that he’s okay. But I don’t think he’s okay.

At best, I think he continued to live a life with nightmares, hallucinations, and random blackouts that may or may not lead to him having a broken leg. At worst, he found a nice, quiet place to overdose because he didn’t want to suffer anymore. Except he will suffer. He will suffer for eternity.

But yes, this is my theory behind the meaning of the “Ark” and the basis for the series. Has this been done before? Idk, I’ve never seen it before. I can promise you that I’m not stealing someone else’s theory, at least not on purpose. I feel like this makes a lot of sense, and it gives totheark a good motivation as to what they’re after and why they’re after it.

It’s a nice thought that at least somebody finally got what they were after, that they finally got peace after everything that happened to them. I have no proof that Jay did or did not find the Ark. I suppose that his corpse was still physical, I mean, it was still in the real world. But it had clearly been teleported, and he was sitting on a bunch of pages that Alex had drawn. 

They were nowhere near Tim’s house at the college, which is where he died at. And when Tim finally goes back to his house, Jay isn’t there, the pages aren’t there, “Your fault” isn’t written on the mirror a dozen times. So we can assume that really, he wasn’t in the real world. He was in another dimension, likely the Own Zone. We’ve seen Tim go into that place before, but I don’t recall Jay ever going. So Tim can be teleported into that dimension while he’s still alive, and Brian is also there too. But only for a moment. This is also before he died.

So I don’t know. I think Jay was taken to the Operator’s world, like Alex and the poor rock victim. What do you think? 

Even if this theory is utter nonsense it was fun writing. It’s an interesting concept and I definitely enjoyed it. I’ve been literally breathing Marble Hornets for the past few weeks so I couldn’t stop a theory from popping into my mind and then make me think, ‘hey, what if?’

Actually, I’ve been thinking about making a separate blog solely dedicated to Marble Hornets. Should I? I probably will - after all, this blog I have right now is more about Creepypasta rather than Marble Hornets. And I’m a huge Marble Hornets fan so I want something dedicated to it. Also, it’ll give me the opportunity to talk about my unending love for Brian without seeming sudden and obsessed xD

So... yeah. That’s me done. Happy Valentine’s day, btw! I am very lonely, as I assume a lot of you are, so it’s the perfect excuse to write CP fluff and act as if I won’t end up alone with thirty cats. I already have four of ‘em, guess I’m well on my way. That isn’t a bad thing though. Cats are awesome. Prove me wrong.

So yes, I will be sure to get some Valentine’s day content out for you beautiful people tomorrow unless I find myself totally unmotivated. Fingers crossed, right?

[purplecatghostposts]

I have no idea if the ‘Seth is the founder of ToTheArk’ theory is real (and honestly even if it isn’t, I would carry it on as a HC) but I can say that imagining Seth as TTA gives him so much more DEPTH because like.

From what little we see from Seth, he was fairly passive, so him as TTA? Rigid opinions, cryptic, hellbent on killing Alex, the ever watching eye behind the camera, seemingly knows how the Operator works enough to give it its name? It gets my brain GOING.